I took a couple of GPS coordinate readings on a Garmin Vista HCX GPS device during Sunday's nooner. Dan Doke spent a bunch of time figuring out the majority of the pin positions a couple of years back with a professional grade laser rangefinder. Since then a few new positions have been added and I think he accidentally omitted a couple of pin positions as well (Hole 17, position E (old 11) comes to mind). Just so that we have a good estimate, I am going to try to fill in the gaps with the GPS method. It is not 100% accurate like the rangefinder, but at least it is a start. In order to narrow the margin of error, I figure that I will take seperate readings on 3 different days and then take the average. My test on Sunday was basically to figure out how to use the GPS device. I took the readings on Hole 13 for the new position (D). Here is what I came up with:

Using an online Great Circle Method coordinate conversion program, I came up with .063 miles. This in turn converts to 332.64 feet with an elevation drop of 14 ft. This seems a bit long to me, but maybe the drop in elevation is the reason for this. I will take more coordinates the next time I am at the course and after averaging everything out, I should come up with a fairly accurate final number.

Take 2 = .057 miles = 300.96 ft.

On the second take, I figured out a way to use the GPS more accurately. Therefore, I am going to ignore the first set of stats. 300 feet seems more like it.